


Backsliding

by annabeth_at_the_helm



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cheating, Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 20:31:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16048028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annabeth_at_the_helm/pseuds/annabeth_at_the_helm
Summary: Hawkeye hadn't expected anything from Trapper; what little he got should have been enough. But it wasn't--and that fucking hurts.





	Backsliding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shadesofhades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadesofhades/gifts).



> I got the idea from a Carrie Underwood song and I stole the title of the same song for the title of this fic. :P

Hawkeye didn't expect it to hurt so much. Before, when his lust and love for Trapper was a nebulous thing at best, something he didn't ever expect to be reciprocated, he had resigned himself to that prick of pain every time he saw Trap with a nurse.

Then there was that weekend in Tokyo, when Trap had been too hungover to try to find the geisha houses, and Hawkeye hadn't wanted any more than to just be with Trap—the kisses, the touches, everything that came after was an unexpected, welcome surprise. Trap had been willing, Hawkeye was sure of it. He wasn't too drunk or too hungover not to understand what he was doing.

How could he, after all, mistake another man's cock for some feminine body part? No, Trapper understood what they were doing. And for a few weeks after they returned to the 4077th, Trap and Hawk had sneaked and stolen kisses in darkness and behind the garbage cans or in the supply tent.

How had it gone so wrong? Hawkeye remembers it clearly:

"This has gotta stop before we get caught," Trapper had said, although apparently not impervious to Hawkeye just yet, as he swept Hawkeye's hair back the way it should fall on his forehead. "Before we both get a blue discharge, Hawk. I don't know if what you've done with the nurses is all for show, but for _me_ it ain't. For me… well, besides my wife, I love women, Hawk."

Why had those words hurt so much?

"Trap—" but Hawkeye hadn't been able to think of a single thing to say. What _could_ he say? That Trap was wrong? Trapper wasn't wrong. Hawkeye had sighed, squeezing his hands into fists to keep from reaching for Trap: to stroke that unshaven cheek, to run his fingers through those soft, delicate curls.

"Of course you'll still be important to me," Trap continued. "But that's all we can be now: is friends."

"I understand." Hawkeye didn't, not really. What he felt for Trapper was so deep, so powerful, that it was like a river with a strong current, one where you couldn't see the bottom and where if you fell in, you were liable to be carried away. "Just don't… don't act weird, okay?"

Trapper had bestowed on him one last kiss, belying his words, his intent; he kissed Hawkeye's forehead and whispered,

"I love you, Hawk. It won't be weird."

But it is weird. Hawkeye just watched Trap bring a nurse to the supply tent. And it hurts. It hurts like a scalpel accidentally nicking the flesh, or surgery with no anesthetic. It fucking hurts.

In a small camp like this, by dinner, when everyone is trying to hold their food down, everyone will know that Trap fucked the new nurse who just transferred. And no one will look sympathetically at Hawkeye, because no one will understand.

Hawkeye surreptitiously wipes a couple of tears. Why should he cry over this? It's not like he couldn't have predicted it. He never expected to have what he got, so he should just be grateful—he knows it, but it still fucking stings like alcohol in an open wound.

He turns away and makes his way back to the Swamp, feeling untethered because he's not walking beside Trapper. When he enters, Frank is lying on his bed with his ankles crossed, his Bible in his hand.

"Hey, Frank," Hawk says, because at least he still has this. Frank looks up over his Bible, thin lips pursed.

"Oh, what do you mean by that?" he snaps in his reedy voice, then rolls over and pretends Hawk doesn't exist.

He could keep needling Frank, but in his present mood that doesn't seem very nice. Not like he really cares to be nice to Frank, but he's afraid that if he tries to rile him up, he'll be especially cruel—not a trait he's all that pleased to find in himself.

He sits on his cot and pulls out his notebook, writing yet another coded letter he'll never send, because the addressee is the occupant of the next cot over.

_Everyone will know, soon. They will see you walk arm and arm, and it will be very apparent. No one will know I loved you. No one will see how my eyes follow you, because I won't let them._

_But I see you. I see you sneak off together. I know you've found someone new, and even if that person doesn't hold your interest long, I know there will be another, and another, and another. I know you've probably heard rumors about me too._

_I know that you're married, but for some reason that never hurt as much as this does, this idea that I had you and you slipped through my fingers like blood running from a hot, infected wound. That's what this feels like, anyway. Like my blood is sticky on my fingers and I won't survive._

_But I guess I will. I guess a person can survive anything, if he can make it through a war._

_The problem is, I don't know if I_ can _make it through a war, not this war, not without you. I need you. I need you. I need you._

Hawkeye is almost crying again, and he can't let Frank see, so he stops writing, before folding the note in a tinier and tinier square. It's mid-afternoon, but he was in the OR all night and then had a shift in post-op, so he's exhausted. He falls asleep with a shaft of sunlight warming his midsection, and for a little while, everything drifts away.

++

When Hawkeye wakes up, everything is very quiet, no choppers, no sounds of running feet. It's dark, and he rolls onto his back, just before he gets the sense that Trapper is lying in his bunk only a few feet away, awake. It might be utterly silent, but he's powerfully aware of Trap's presence, the fact that he's not asleep. Hawkeye is attuned to Trapper by now; he can tell when Trap is asleep or awake or even when he's worrying in the dark.

He knows when Trapper is thinking about his wife—near silent, heavy breaths that indicate discontent, not lust—or his daughters—shallow, light breathing with a tinge of tears. And yet, Trapper's breathing tonight is a curious mixture of heavy and light, a faint gasp accompanying each exhale. When Hawkeye realizes why, he squeezes his eyes tightly shut.

Why would Trapper need to jerk off, in the middle of the night, in such a risky fashion, when he fucked a nurse just that afternoon? How could he possibly need the release? Even for him—for the both of them—it would be excessive, and unusual; why not just find another nurse?

But Trapper knows Hawkeye's moods just as well. He stops, and the faint creak of his cot, which had been so lightly rhythmic, goes silent. Then a succession of creaks and squeaks as Trapper climbs from the cot and tiptoes to Hawkeye's.

"Are you awake?" he whispers, and Hawk wants to pretend to be asleep, to ignore Trapper's overture, but Trap, by now, knows Hawk's not sleeping.

He shifts onto his side, and lights from the compound illuminate those beautiful hazel eyes he loves so much.

"What is it?" he asks, and wonders just what Trapper will say.

"Did you have a good time with Nurse Able?" Trapper asks, and Hawk feels a spear of shock. How could—Trapper thought he'd been with a nurse too? Maybe when he needed her in X-Ray—though that was strictly work-related.

"Did you have a good time with Nurse Elliot?" Hawkeye snipes, and Trapper looks wounded. He sighs and puts his hand on Hawkeye's shoulder.

"I didn't—I couldn't. All I could think about was you." This is a dangerous confession to make inside the Swamp, though a quick, furtive glance tells Hawkeye that Frank must have a shift in post-op, because he's not in his bed. Or he's with Hot Lips. "Hawk, I'm sorry."

Hawkeye knows for a fact that Trapper has never, not once, apologized to _anyone_ for his womanizing or his cheating. He's unrepentant; he's never seen the need to. His wife has to know; the nurses are aware of it too. But it's Hawk he chooses to apologize to?

"You're right, you are sorry," Hawk says, probably meaner than he meant to. Trap closes his eyes briefly, then rubs his hand down his face and meets Hawk's eyes in the dark again.

"Yes," he agrees easily enough, "I'm a sorry excuse for a sonofabitch. I've never felt guilty, never, Hawk. Not until this afternoon. And that's when I realized—when I knew. _How_ I knew that I was wrong to end things. It's ten o'clock and Frank's got post-op duty till eleven. Meet me in the supply tent?"

Trapper is up and on his feet in a split second, and he doesn't wait for Hawkeye's reponse. He doesn't look back, either.

But Hawkeye understands what he's asking: in five minutes, if Hawkeye's in that supply room with Trap, things will change. They will become dirty and forbidden, a resumption of a passion that Hawk doesn't think he can live without.

Hawkeye takes ten deep breaths in the dark, then shoves on his boots, pulls on his robe. He hadn't expected it to hurt so much—he can't possibly turn down this chance.

So he swallows thickly and makes his way out of the Swamp and through the compound. When he slips into the supply tent, there's a single light burning and Trap is waiting for him, shirtless, his bare chest sweaty and his curls already disordered.

His magnificent, generously sized cock is still hard.

Hawkeye walks right into those arms, initiates a kiss that rocks his world like a sudden shelling. And closes his eyes.

This is right where he's meant to be.

END.


End file.
